Should Bloodrager get pierce support?

[lMarcusl]

The Bloodrager set supports three masteries: Soldier, Shaman and Nightblade. It focuses mainly on Blade Arc, Savagery and Ring of Steel, with some minor support for Feral Hunger. Now, Bleeding naturally works best when used with a variety of sources through which to apply bleed, so rather than focusing on just one or two skills, bleed builds thrive on utilising a wider variety of skills the class offers. In addition, bleed has the downside of providing no sustain, so usually the build has to either go regen (not an option on Bloodrager) or leech off of a flat damage type. So even though bleed may be the main source of damage and Bloodrager may focus on three skills in particular, a well-supported secondary flat source of damage is very important for the build to function and the build will likely reach for other skills than the ones supported by the set.

But looking at all the possible sources of bleed damage that a Bloodrager build could choose from in these masteries, there’s some gaps.

In Soldier we have Blade Arc, which aside from bleed deals flat phys, internal trauma and whatever WD type we have. There’s Cadence and Forcewave, which both have the same damage breakdown. Counterstrike does a similar thing minus the Trauma. Looking good so far, Bloodrager supports all of Phys, Trauma and Bleed. However, we might run into issues based on the damage type of the weapon. As long as it’s full phys we’re good, though.

In Shaman we get a similar story, except for the addition of flat Lightning damage on Savagery, Upheaval and Primal Strike, and Vitality damage on Devouring Swarm. Huh, ok so Bloodrager still covers a decent portion of the damage, as phys is still present on several Shaman bleed skills, but Lightning is kinda left out and, again, weapon damage type will matter.

In Nightblade is where stuff starts looking pretty bad. The only WPS in Nightblade with native bleed is Whirling Death, which has flat pierce on it, plus we get flat pierce from Dual Blades that Bloodrager does nothing for. There’s Phantasmal Blades, which deals a whole mess of damage types, from cold to vitality to chaos, but the vast majority is Piercing (and WD, of course). There’s Blade Trap, which deals Piercing and Vitality, but that’s pretty much a non-factor as all sources of trap resist reduction are blocked by the set. And then there’s the big one. Ring of Steel, the skill directly supported by the set, and its chonky slab of Pierce damage. And Bloodrager supports none of it. If, god forbid, the build uses a 100 % pierce weapon, say a 100 % trickster weapon like Rancor, Bloodrager does nothing for all the %WD sources in the build or leaves the entire Nightblade part of the build out in terms of flat damage as well.

I think that’s a major flaw in the set, as it limits the weapon options the set can reasonably support, and leaves the Nightblade variants (Trickster, Blademaster) wanting for flat damage on their bleed skills to sustain from. I’ll admit I don’t have endgame experience on the set yet, I’m only about to start Ultimate with it. Perhaps there are successful Pierce Tricksters and BMs out there I don’t know of that work with the set. I’ve seen @fordprefect’s DW Trickster that runs around with 800 % base pierce damage but that one also green-hunted to 1700 Cunning and sits at 62 % lifesteal, and I don’t think that really should be the standard. I just find it puzzling that one of the three main skills the set supports is just kinda left in the dirt when it comes to flat damage while the other two are either fully (Blade Arc) or mostly (Savagery) covered.

[thepowerofmediocrity]

The Bloodrager’s Set doesn’t really support Ring of Steel at all as much as it supports Circle of Slaughter - the real meat of the bonuses directly support the Bleeding aspect of it. And there’s enough Bleeding support for Nightblade between using it as a Melee attacker and a Blade Spirits caster (a tremendous Bleeding skill that you somehow forgot in your post) that it gets heavy use even without the Pierce support.

There’s enough Bleeding support for Savagery that you can do some ridiculous things like banana_peel’s Double Dummy Kill. How effective that would be in gameplay I’m not sure, but there’s enough of a hit-and-run playstyle that you can bounce from one pack to the next, apply the bleeds, and not have to worry about anything. Or at the very least exchange some of that ridiculous bleed damage for more Physical damage to sustain from.

I also run a Physical Blademaster that combines Bleed from transmuted Blade Arc and Ring of Steel with the heavy bleeds from Cadence, and while it requires rare greens to stack up your skill points, it’s very effective in what it does (it runs Crucible and SR 75-80 just fine) Additionally, it uses the Crimson Claws to convert all that Pierce damage to Physical damage, so all that Pierce is not wasted on the build.

While Pierce support may be nice, you can build around Nightblade in multiple ways already with the set without hampering yourself, whether it’s DW melee or Blade Spirit caster. Bloodrager is already centralizing enough for Bleed builds (it’s only recently that people started using Goredrinker for its Bleeding prowess) that the set is fine without Pierce support.

[lMarcusl]

@thepowerofmediocrity

Blade Spirits caster (a tremendous Bleeding skill that you somehow forgot in your post)

I didn’t, I was focusing solely on skills that can provide lifesteal either directly (Devouring Swarm) or through %WD. That’s where the absence of flat damage support matters the most. Blade Spirits are a tremendous Bleeding skill but their Pierce damage or lack thereof doesn’t factor into sustain, hence the omission.

@thepowerofmediocrity

I also run a Physical Blademaster that combines Bleed from transmuted Blade Arc and Ring of Steel with the heavy bleeds from Cadence, and while it requires rare greens to stack up your skill points, it’s very effective in what it does (it runs Crucible and SR 75-80 just fine) Additionally, it uses the Crimson Claws to convert all that Pierce damage to Physical damage, so all that Pierce is not wasted on the build.

Well that’s the issue, isn’t it? You have to convert away from Pierce into phys to not waste damage and that option isn’t available on everything. I mean look at banana’s build. It has 500 % base pierce damage and 180 % lightning damage. All the flat on Savagery, Whirling Death, Execution and RoS is wasted, only the %WD applies cause he has full phys weapons (ford’s build had Bloodsong that also wastes damage through 45 % pierce conversion). Both banana and ford had to stack ridiculous amounts of lifesteal (50%+) and Cunning cause good portions of their damage that they could have used went to waste due to lacking Pierce damage support on the set. Meanwhile in Wildblood land you can comfortably sit at around 20 % lifesteal cause the core flat damage is well supported by the set and there’s extra lifesteal on the primaries you use. No jumping through hoops.

If Bloodrager supported just Bleeding, I could get that. The devs didn’t want the set to be overpowered, so while it does a lot of bleed, which is a very poorly resisted damage type, they took away on the flat damage and forced the player to jump through some hoops in stacking lifesteal and Cunning in order to sustain. But that’s not the case, Phys for something like your Blademaster is fully supported and you can Cunning-stack that just as much as Pierce. So why leave Pierce out of the set, when it’s the core flat damage type of one of the three supported masteries?

[thepowerofmediocrity]

If conversion options are plenty available and don’t take away from the set, then it’s not an issue.
If you’re getting SR90 and Crucible naked clears with Trickster, then there’s no issue.

Bloodrager accounts for the lack of inherent lifesteal by piling on defensive measures such as multiple heals. Whether the giant amount of life-steal is necessary or not is irrelevant if the weapons, gearing, and devotions supply it in great abundance (Mogdrogen + Fox alone provides 16% ADCTH). There is clearly enough Bleeding damage that you can get through the game with minimal issues.

Bloodrager is already a stacked set. There’s no need for it to be even more stacked, especially when you’re trying to stack damage that’s not really supported by the moves (you’re not trying to stack Ring of Steel to 22/12 when there’s only +3 to the move). At least Physical damage is necessary for Blade Arc (and to a smaller extent, Savagery, as Storm Touched provides %Physical damage). If there’s a case that Piece/Bleeding Tricksters need help, that’s one thing, but Bloodrager isn’t the avenue to improve it.

[fordprefect]

I think Primal Bond should have %Pierce damage instead of Bloodrager. If bloodrager set would change, then I prefer it to have %all damage instead of bloating pierce,physical, bleeding, internal trauma.